


but you're human tonight

by asweetdeception



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, F/M, Minor Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asweetdeception/pseuds/asweetdeception
Summary: The war is over. Voldemort has won. And nothing can save the wizarding world from his monstrous clutches.But Ginny can’t give up. She won’t give up. Broken by grief, she heads to the past with nothing but a suicidal resolve in her heart. If she could just erase the source of it all, kill the man who caused all of this misery, she could fix everything. She could save everyone. But the dark-haired Slytherin boy of the past isn't yet quite the repulsive monster he would become. She hates him with everything in her, and yet something about him draws her in against her every waking wish. She hates herself even more.
Relationships: Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	but you're human tonight

It's over. 

_No_.

He's gone.

_No._

They're all as good as dead.

_No!_

She had heard the announcement Voldemort had so graciously made. She had heard it all. Harry was dead. Ron was dead. Hermione was dead. Most of the Order was dead and the remaining few had been shackled and imprisoned. It was over. He had won. But she refused to believe it. She couldn't let herself believe it. She couldn't allow herself to exist in a world where darkness had won once and for all. Where there only hope of defeating it had died a slow, miserable death. They had been so close.

And yet, here she stood, in the dark hallway beneath the Headmaster's Tower, with defeat at the castle doors. 

_No._

She refused to give up. She couldn’t let this monster win. This couldn’t be the end of everything. She refused. 

She got up from the ground and marched over to the gargoyle guarding the staircase to the Headmaster’s office. Ginny didn’t know what she was thinking or what her plan was, she just knew that she had to do something. Anything. She couldn’t just give up. She would fight till her last breath. It wasn’t over. Not for her. 

“Ippisky dardrum.”

The gargoyle stepped aside and let her into the staircase. 

The Headmasters office was empty save for a few sleeping portraits. The rest of them had seemingly vacated the premises. 

Ginny started walking around the office, unsure of what she was looking for. She didn’t know what she expected. This office that once represented safety and help had now been occupied by a death-eater for the past year. It offered her no warmth, no safety, and no help. She looked to Dumbledore’s portrait, hoping that maybe the complicated man’s portrait would offer her some help. But he too had vacated this painting. 

And just like that, Ginny’s exhaustion and hopelessness caught up to her. She collapsed to the floor, burning tears dripping down her face. Her heavy breaths turned into angry sobs as she slid down to the floor, burying her face into the cold concrete.

She had lost so much. She was only sixteen and yet she had lost so much. Her whole life had been clouded by one darkness after another. She thought back to the time when everything was still okay. When she was happy and unblemished by life’s atrocities. Her eleventh birthday, when she had received her Hogwarts letter. She had been so happy to be finally joining her brothers at the magical school she had heard countless intriguing stories about. 

How could she have known what was to transpire? How could she have known how wrong everything would go from there on out? From the moment she stepped foot into Hogwarts. From the moment a certain dairy made it into her hands.

She had been eleven when the world’s darkness first laid its claim to her. And it never left. 

_Tom._

From the beginning till the end it was always him. Everything that went wrong in her life started from him and ended with him. No matter what names he went by now, he was still Tom. 

Her one-time friend. 

Her confidante, her ruining, her haunting memory. 

She let out a cold laugh in between her muffled sobs.

The Lord Voldemort of now wouldn’t even know who she was. He wouldn’t even know of the little eleven year old girl his memory had ruined. The reckless collateral damage of his schemes.

Hatred more powerful than anything she had ever felt pulsed through her. She hated him. She hated him so much. He had taken everything from her. Her sanity, her childhood, her family. Her friends. And now Harry too, and with him any chance of her happy world.

Hot tears continued burning through her lashes, giving no indication of stopping. 

She wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t. He couldn’t win. Not after everything. The world couldn’t be this cruel, this unfair. 

She wiped the tears off her face with the sleeve of her robe and looked around the room aimlessly. Just then, something sharply reflective caught her eye. She turned her head towards it and looked closer. Whatever it was, It was stuck in a crack on the floor. Ginny crawled over to it and shook it loose from its surroundings.

An hourglass? She examined it closely, turning it around in her palm. There were two rings encasing it. A small rolled up piece of parchment fell from within it and landed on the floor next to her. She picked it up and unrolled it.

“If all else fails,” was scribbled messily on it in a handwriting Ginny had been reading for six years. 

Snape. 

She wracked her brain trying to understand what this could possibly mean. Why would Snape leave this note in an hourglass? What did he mean by it? Was it an instruction for death eaters if Voldemort failed? But how would they even get into the castle if that were the case? But more importantly, what did the hourglass have to do with it all?

That’s when it struck her. 

It wasn’t an hourglass.

It was a time-turner. 

Ginny gasped as adrenaline shot through her veins, calling her body back to attention. 

Her mind was whirling. A time-turner. She could go back. She could change everything. She could fix everything. But where to? What would be the best place to go? Time-turners were tricky. She couldn’t use it again and again so she had to be extremely deliberate in her choice. Where would she go? To save Harry right before he died? But what if she failed? What if it wasn’t enough?

Her heart thudded violently against her chest. Where could she go that would ensure her mission didn’t fail? There were so many choices, so many possibilities. Her eyes desperately darted across the room, looking for something, anything, to give her direction. But to no avail. 

Just then, she heard loud footsteps thudding their way up the staircase. They were accompanied by laughter.

Death-eaters. 

Her heart pounding, Ginny clasped the time turner and tightly in her hand. She didn’t have time to think or make decisions. She had to leave right this very second or she would be found, and Merlin knows what would happen to her then. She closed her eyes and flicked the hourglass between the rings, not knowing where she was headed. The only thought in her head was that she had to stop him. She had to stop Tom.

And just like that the world around her faded.

\---

_Thud._

Ginny fell down on the concrete floor of the Headmaster’s. A sharp headache shot through her head. For a moment, she thought she had failed and the death-eaters had found her. But then she looked up and studied her surroundings. Not only was she alone, but the Headmaster’s office had transformed into something she had never seen before. Everything was different. This didn’t look like Snape’s office or Dumbledore’s. Not any of the times she had visited it anyway. How far back had she gone?

Panic rushed through her. She couldn’t remember how many times the time-turner had turned or where she had told it to take her. 

A voice from behind her cleared it’s throat and startled her right out of her panic.

She whipped around and gasped before she could stop herself.

A much younger, very alive Dumbledore stood in front of her, studying her through his half-moon spectacles. If she hadn’t been so shell-shocked by the events leading up to this moment, she might have broken down crying.

“Professor Dumbledore,” she breathed out.

“Miss…?” He quirked up an eyebrow.

Of course. This Dumbledore didn’t know her. She felt stupid for not realizing that right away.

“Weasley.” 

He raised his chin slightly, clearly confused by her.

“You are not a student at Hogwarts. So, I ask, what are you doing inside the Headmaster’s office.”

Where should she even begin? If she told him the truth would he believe even a word of it? And if she didn’t, what else could she possibly say to explain herself?

“I-I came to see you, Professor,” she stuttered out. 

“And you thought you might find me in Headmaster Dippet’s office?” He tilted his head slightly.

Ginny’s heart dropped as she found her mind once again wondering, how far back had she gone? She gulped. Words escaped her. She thought about a million things to say, but none of them found their way out of her lips. Until finally, she settled on something simple.

“What year is it, Professor?”

Dumbledore furrowed his eyebrows, scrutinizing her under his gaze. It felt like hours later when he finally answered.

“1943.”

Ginny gasped. 1943? How had she come back so far? She had only meant to go back a few days to warn the Order and Harry. How had she gone back half a century? How was that even possible? Time-turners didn’t work like that. At least that is what she had thought up until this moment.

“What year did you think it was?” Dumbledore asked calmly.

“1998.”

“That’s quite a long way to travel.” His voice didn’t show it, but there was a hint of alarm in his eyes. “What brought you back here?”

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to be here. I meant to only go back a few days,” she said breathlessly.

“Time-turners are a tricky magic. You have to be very careful handling them. They can be very unpredictable. They’re not meant for use by unsupervised, underaged students.”

Tears burned through her eyes once again. To hear Dumbledore scold her like that, it was like nothing bad had ever happened. Like she was still in the Hogwarts of her time. Like Voldemort had never returned. She wiped her tears on her sleeve once again as anger surged in her veins. 

“I was trying to stop something terrible from happening. I was in a hurry so I didn’t have time to think or plan. I’m not meant to be here. I need to go back and warn them. I need to stop it all from happening.”

“Oh, dear.” His eyes filled with pity. “Time-turners don’t work in that manner. They only take you to the past. They cannot take you to the future.”

Ginny felt like he had punched her in the gut. Horror settled into her veins and travelled through her entire body.

“What does that mean, Professor?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“You can’t go back.”

“But I have to warn them. I have to-” Angry tears started swelling in her eyes.

“What exactly is it that you mean to stop?” Barely contained alarm once again returned to his eyes.

Ginny sighed. She didn’t know where to start, so she opened her mouth and let the words pour out in whatever way they felt fit.

“Years from now, a dark wizard comes to Hogwarts. He becomes the most dangerous and evil wizard of all time.” Ginny regailed the story of Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter to a shocked Dumbledore.

By the time she finished, the man in front of her looked scared in a way she never thought possible. 

“He won. It’s all over. And I wanted to stop it. I thought I would go back in time to save Harry or do something, anything to change it all. But now I’m here stuck in the past with no way of going back and it will all be for nothing! It’s all going to go to hell anyway.”

She kicked the pillar next to her in frustration.

“Maybe I should have just stayed there and let the Death Eaters finish me off.” Ginny let out a cold, humorless laugh.

“Death-Eaters?” Dumbledore’s face filled with a horrid understanding.

“That’s what his supporters are called.”

“Voldemort. That’s what you said his name was?” His eyes filled with a calculating look.

“Yes.” Ginny furrowed her brows, unsure of the purpose of these questions.

“Is there any other name he uses?” 

“His birth name. But he doesn’t really use it. From what I’ve heard he despises it. Tom Riddle.”

Dumbledore took in a sharp breath. 

Ginny stepped forward, adrenaline once again coursing through her.

“Do you know him?” 

Dumbledore’s eyes turned cold. A defeated, sad look came over his face.

“Tom Morvolo Riddle is a sixth year student at Hogwarts.”

Ginny’s heart felt like a giant had stepped on it.

Tom Riddle. He was here. In his sixth year. The very same Tom Riddle she had once poured her heart out to in a diary. Her eyes widened.

The last thing she had thought of before flicking the time-turner was his face as hatred had coursed through her. Is that why she was here?

“If he’s here, maybe the time-turner didn’t make a mistake. Maybe I’m meant to be here to stop him before he can ever become Voldemort. If I kill him now, then he’ll never become Voldemort and nothing bad he did will happen. I can save them all.” 

Her heart was racing at the prospect. 

Dumbledore shook his head. “You cannot meddle with time this way.”

Ginny threw him an incredulous look. 

“You have already done a very dangerous thing by travelling here, Miss Weasley. Anything you do here could have terrible consequences in the future.”

“Well, I have to do something. I can’t just sit back and watch him become the monster that ruins the world like you did!”

Dumbledore flinched and Ginny regretted her words immediately. 

“I am sure I did whatever I could.” 

“And it wasn’t enough. You died. And then Harry died. And Voldemort won.”

He didn’t respond, but his eyes betrayed him. Ginny had never seen Dumbledore look so unsure in her life before. The look terrified her. There was a defeat in his eyes. And if Dumbledore looked defeated, then what hope was there for her?

“Maybe there is another way.” He didn’t meet her eyes.

“You have no idea how to stop him.”

Dumbledore’s eye twitched. 

“So, we need to kill him. Now.”

“Can you guarantee that that will solve everything? Can you guarantee that nothing worse will come of that action?”

“It will stop the worst so how could anything worse happen?” Ginny exclaimed, frustrated.

“There is always something worse out there, Miss Weasley. Things we cannot perceive or imagine. That is why we do not meddle with time.”

“So, what do you suggest we do?” She glared at him.

“I suggest for now we lay back and gather more information,” Dumbledore responded calmly.

“And how do we do that?”

“For one, a new sixth-year Slytherin student will start at Hogwarts on September 1st. It’s a good thing you made it here just in time for the start of the term.”

“You want me to go to school. With him.” 

“What better way to learn more about the budding Lord Voldemort?” There was a hint of a twinkle in his otherwise somber eyes. “Tom Riddle is a problem I have foreseen since he first started gaining influence among the other students and teachers at Hogwarts. Of course, I had no idea how dangerous of a problem he would become. Up until now, I have had trouble ascertaining his true motives due to the limitations of my position. Tom is a very charming personality, you see. It’s quite hard to find anyone in Hogwarts willing to shed light on him. Most are enthralled by him and others are too scared of him to risk being on his bad side. Having you in the midst of his peers will provide us unfiltered access to his thoughts and plans.”

“You want me to spy for you?” Ginny raised an eyebrow.

“I want you to spy for your world.” 

Ginny tilted her head and studied the Headmaster for a moment. 

“How will we explain my sudden presence here?”

“Leave that to me. You cannot, however, go by your real name. Weasleys are a well-known family. Your name will cause suspicion. Is there a name you prefer to use?”

“Ginny Griffin.”

“Okay, Miss Griffin. Let me escort you to your dormitories before Headmaster Dippet returns from his evening walk.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Helloooo. Just an fyi, as big of a potterhead as I am, I haven't reread the books in years so if there are discrepancies (especially in writing Dumbledore) then I'm sorry in advance. :)


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